“USA! USA! USA!” I’m in a throng of people. They are chanting, sweating, and drinking from red, white, and blue emblazoned cans of Budweiser as one. They love America. At least, I think. Everyone here is between 20 and 30, and suddenly I am terrified. There are sparklers and tank tops aplenty, and as the chants die out someone starts telling a story about how he witnessed a chicken fight at the pool earlier ...

Youth, it seems to me, is the time when a person can conceive of his eventual death and yet remain unfazed—not just untroubled, but in every way unmoved—neither stirred to live life richer, nor truer, nor better, nor deeper, nor more successfully, nor even more fearfully. Youth ends when the truth we’ve always known finally changes us. Death, then, is the great Truth. Yes, it will kill us, but it contains a ...

“Sir, what if a writer is attempting to create a story where nothing much happens, where people don't change, they don't have any epiphanies. They struggle and are frustrated and nothing is resolved. More a reflection of the real world.” – Adaptation (2002) It’s often said that life is a story. We each write our own, or, if you prefer the Bard’s metaphor, we’re all players on the stage of existence. I confe ...

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The Pender Journal is a collection of thoughts about life by people who are alive. It exists to reflect something true about that experience by sharing the thoughts, feelings, interests, and humors of its contributors.